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Middle Eastern Realities

Posted By William Kilpatrick On June 14, 2010 @ 12:35 am In FrontPage | 21 Comments

Although many won’t admit it, we are in the midst of an ideological war with Islam. And since the advantage goes to the side that fully realizes they are at war, the West is losing. The propaganda war is going in favor of Islam precisely because the West doesn’t realize it is supposed to be fighting one. The ability of Islam to rally much of the world behind its hatred of Israel is a telling indication of who is winning the war of ideas. As for war aims, it’s not clear that there are any. Even those who see the danger clearly rarely talk in terms of victory; they talk mainly in terms of resisting cultural jihad. You know you’re in trouble when your ideological opponent is a primitive seventh-century belief system, and yet the best that your top strategists hope for is to put up a good resistance.

As the Dracula-like return of Communist ideology demonstrates, an ideological war needs to be fought to complete and total victory. The enemy ideology should be so thoroughly discredited that no one—not even its former staunchest defenders, not even the most doctrinaire college professor—will want to be associated with it. In regard to Islam, then, our aim should go beyond simply resisting jihad; it should be the defeat of Islam as an idea. But, aside from inflicting crushing military defeats on Islamic powers, how do you accomplish that?

One answer is that you do all you can to force Muslims to question their faith in Islam. As Mark Steyn observes, “there’s no market for a faith that has no faith in itself.” He was speaking, of course, of the more mushy versions of Western Christianity—the post-Christian Christians who seem anxious to dialogue themselves into dhimmitude. But there’s no reason the concept can’t be applied to Islam. Surely the average intelligent Muslim has occasional doubts about the founding revelations. And just as surely he keeps them to himself, not only because he fears his fellow Muslims, but also because the rest of the world seems to be going along with the pretense that he belongs to a great religion. It may be time for the rest of the world to drop the pretense.

If one of your opponents’ core beliefs is that you need to be subjugated, why wouldn’t you want to foster doubts in his mind? Jihadists commit jihad because they correctly perceive that their religion calls them to it. As long as they are kept secure in the illusion that their faith is unassailable, they will continue the jihad by whatever means seem most expedient. They won’t question their faith—and neither will the majority of Muslims—unless they get used to the fact that it can be questioned and criticized.

One man who has done a lot to shake up the faith of Muslims is Fr. Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest who hosts a weekly Arabic language TV program watched by millions of Muslims around the world. Among other things, the engaging Fr. Botros forces his Muslim audience to confront unflattering facts about their prophet. He also talks to them about the Christian faith—something that most Muslims know very little about, beyond some simple caricatures. Apparently he is very successful at what he does. According to reports he is responsible for mass conversions to Christianity.

Does such questioning of Muhammad’s character provoke anger among Muslims? Well, yes, it does. The elderly Fr. Botros has been labeled Islam’s “Public Enemy #1,” and a reported $60 million bounty has been put on his head. But, according to a recent piece by Raymond Ibrahim, “the outrage appears to be subsiding.” Ibrahim contends that Life TV (the satellite station that carries Fr. Botros’ program) “has conditioned its Muslim viewers to accept that exposure and criticism of their prophet is here to stay.” The first time a Muslim hears the moral flaws of the Prophet exposed, he may well be angry at the exposure. But how about the third time? The tenth time? The twentieth time? What initially provokes anger might eventually provoke doubts about Muhammad’s claims.

There are those who think that such efforts are doomed to failure—that Islam is too deeply rooted in the Muslim world. But deeply held beliefs are not always as deeply rooted as they seem. Thirty-five years ago it would have been non-controversial to say that the Catholic faith was deeply rooted in Ireland, but if you said it today you would be going out on a limb. More to the point, Islam itself was less “deeply rooted” 60 years ago in the Middle East than it is now. Consider this recollection by Ali A. Allawi, a former Iraqi cabinet minister:

I was born into a mildly observant family in Iraq. At that time, the 1950’s, secularism was ascendant among the political, cultural, and intellectual elites of the Middle East. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world. Even that term—“Muslim world”—was unusual, as Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.

Deeply rooted? Perhaps you’ve seen that sequence of photos of the University of Cairo graduating classes for the English Department. The women of the Class of 1959 look like college students anywhere in the Western world circa 1959. They wear Western style skirts and dresses and no head covering. Ditto for the class of 1978. It could be the class of ’78 at the University of Chicago. But by 1994 half the women are wearing hijabs. By 2004 almost all the women are wearing hijabs and ankle-length clothing. So, sometime in the 1990’s educated Muslims apparently began to take their faith more seriously. They appear to take it very seriously now. But how “deeply rooted” is twenty years?

Given that the penalty for leaving Islam—or even criticizing it—can be death, we may be mistaking deeply rooted fear for deeply rooted faith. Moreover, the fact that Islam prescribes such harsh penalties for doubters suggests that the faith itself is not intrinsically convincing. As the Ayatollah Khomeini once said, “People cannot be made obedient except with the sword.” Any religion that needs so many external incentives—swords behind you, and virgins in your future—cries out to be questioned. Unfortunately, instead of exploiting its theological weaknesses the West insists on chivalrously shielding Islam from the kind of scrutiny that the West reserves for its own institutions and traditions. And with good reason. Because it’s generally understood, though rarely said, that Muhammad’s claims would not meet the tests of critical reason and historical evidence that we apply to the Judeo-Christian revelation. The much revered sufi theologian al-Ghazali wrote, “The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or his Prophet…” You can see why. Curiosity didn’t kill Christianity, but curiosity would almost certainly kill the Caliphate—or, in our times, the hope for a resurrected Caliphate. Obliged not to mention the Prophet? Given the threat Islam poses to the world and to Muslims themselves, it’s beginning to look as though the obligation runs the other way. The world needs to take a much closer look at the Prophet and his claims. The Prophet is Islam’s main prop. If he is discredited, Islam is discredited. Hence, the mighty efforts by the OIC to make it a crime to blaspheme a prophet.

The Prophet’s integrity is not the only thing in doubt. Theologically speaking, Islam is a house of cards. The whole faith rests on the belief that Muhammad actually received a revelation from God. But where’s the proof? Were there any witnesses to this revelation other than Muhammad? Why should we take his word for it? Why were there so many revelations of convenience that worked directly to Muhammad’s personal advantage? Are there really dozens of renewable virgins awaiting young warriors in paradise, or was this revelation simply a clever recruitment tool manufactured by Muhammad to provide an incentive for following him? And why is the Koran, despite its flashes of poetic brilliance, put together like a soviet-era automobile? As an exercise in composition the Koran would not pass muster in most freshmen writing courses. Why can’t God write as well as the average college student?

Ordinarily it’s not a good idea to go around questioning other people’s firmly held beliefs. But these are not ordinary times, and Islam is no ordinary religion. As any number of observes have noted, it’s partly a religion and partly a supremacist political ideology—although no one seems to be able to say exactly what percent is political ideology and what percent is religion. Is it 50/50 or 60/40 or 80/20? Is it legitimate to criticize the political part of it, but not the religious part? How do you tell where the politics leaves off and the religion begins? Or are they so bound together that they can’t be separated?

If you remember “Joe Palooka,” the old comic strip series about a decent but not-too-bright heavyweight boxer, you might remember that one of Joe’s craftier opponents once tattooed his rather expansive stomach with the word “Mother” inscribed within a large heart. His midsection was his weak spot, of course, but he knew he could count on Joe to avoid hitting him there, Joe being too much of a gentleman to do otherwise. In On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando’s character refers to the place where failed fighters go as “palookaville.” Currently, our whole culture is in danger of ending up in “palookaville” because there are large areas of Islam we decline to examine out of a sense of delicacy that would be excessive in a Victorian matron. Islamic strategists are counting on polite Westerners not to hit them in their soft spot.

Islamic strategists invoke the supremacist principles of the Koran in order to stir up aggression against the Muslim world, yet any criticism of Islam is met with cries of, “No fair! You are blaspheming a prophet and his religion.” So far, the shame-on-you-for-criticizing-a-religion strategy has worked very effectively. Fortunately, a few, like Fr. Botros, aren’t buying into the ruse. He has enough respect for Muslims as individuals to realize that their religion should not be put beyond discussion. Many Muslims, especially Muslim women, suffer a profound sense of desperation: the feeling of being trapped in a 1400-year-old nightmare, with no way out. It’s difficult to see any convincing argument for propping up the system that oppresses them. On the contrary, it seems almost a duty to undermine that system—political and religious—and call it into question at every turn.

In past ideological struggles we wisely sought ideological victory—the discrediting of the belief system that inspired our enemies. Because the driving force behind Islamic aggression is Islamic theology, it makes no sense to treat Islamic theology like a protected species. Rather, we should hope that Muslims lose faith in Islam just as Nazis lost faith in Nazism and Eastern-bloc Communists lost faith in communism.

Of course, it would be all the better if, like Fr. Botros, we had something to offer them in its place. Winston Churchill once said that Greer Garson, for her role in Mrs. Miniver, was worth six divisions in the war against Hitler. It seems safe to say that Fr. Botros, for his role in instilling doubts about Islam and giving Muslims something solid in its place, is worth at least a couple of Departments of Homeland Security.

William Kilpatrick’s articles have appeared in FrontPage Magazine, First Things, Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Jihad Watch, World, and Investor’s Business Daily.

A great irony of the age is that the seemingly most diehard proponents of freedom— the useful idiots of our time—are the most dangerous unwitting accomplices of liberty’s enemy—Islam. Keep in mind that the very name “Islam” is a derivation of “taslim,” the Arabic word for “surrender,” surrender to the will and dictates of Allah as revealed by Muhammad and recorded in the Quran.

This non-negotiable surrender to Islam requires the individual as well as the society to disenfranchise themselves of many of the fundamental and deeply cherished human rights.
Below is a brief presentation of what this surrender to Islam entails and why it is imperative that all freedom-loving people arise and defeat the menace of Islamofascism.

Amendment I of the Bill of Rights enshrines some of the most cherished ideals of freedom-loving people:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Islam considers itself the three branches of government. It enacts laws as it sees fit, adjudicates laws, and executes as it deems. Islam is anathema to the provisions of the First Amendment and much more.

* Islam proclaims itself as the only legitimate religion for the entire world, grudgingly granting minor recognition to Judaism and Christianity from whom it has liberally plagiarized many of its dogma. Jews and Christians are allowed to live under the rule of Islam as dhimmis and must pay a special religious tax of jazyyeh. Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Baha’is, members of other religions, agnostics, or atheists are not even allowed to live practicing their belief or disbelief.

* Islam actively suppresses and even prohibits the practice of other religions, including those of the “people of the book,” Jews and Christians. There is not a single church or synagogue in the cradle of Islam, Saudi Arabia, while thousands of mosques dot the tolerating and welcoming non-Moslem lands. Islamic countries that allow for Jewish and Christian places of worship subject these “people of the book” to numberless subtle and not-so-subtle forms of persecution. Moslems in non-Moslem lands proselytize relentlessly and convert others while any Moslem who leaves Islam is judged as apostate and automatically condemned to death.

* Freedom of speech is just about non-existent in Islam. The word is Allah’s, his chosen divines such as Ayatollahs and Imams are the only ones who are to make pronouncements squarely-based on Allah’s word, the Quran. Any expression in the least at deviance from the Quran, the Hadith and the edicts of Islamic high divines is heresy and severely punishable. Hence, stifling of free expression is the major mechanism by which the Islamic clergy retain power and prevent constructive change in Islamic societies.

* Freedom of the press is completely alien to Islam, since a free press tends to express matters as it sees it, rather than as it is stated in the Quran. To Islam, the Quran is the press and the only press. There is no need for critical reporting, no need to present ideas that may conflict with the Quran, and no place for criticism of anything Islamic. The stranglehold of Islam on the individual and society is complete.

* Peaceful assembly of the people is not allowed. The backward oppressive Islamic societies inflict great hardship on the citizenry and any assembly of the victims presents a threat to the suffocating rule. Islamic governments routinely prevent peaceful assemblies from taking place. Failing to do so, they unleash their hired thugs, the police and even the military against any assemblage no matter how peaceful and how legitimate is its grievance. The Islamic Republic of Iran which is vying with Saudi Arabia as the leader of true Islamic rule, routinely attacks any and all gatherings of its people, arrests them, imprisons them without due process, tortures them, and even executes them in secret dungeons. Journalists, academics, unionists, students, teachers, women rights groups who dare to petition the government for redress are labeled subversive and are severely punished.

* Maltreatment of religious minorities and the non-religious is criminal indeed. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, the government has launched a systematic program of genocide against its largest religious minority—the Baha’is. The government is gathering a comprehensive list of Baha’is, their occupations, locations, properties and the like—action reminiscent of the Nazis. The government is banning Baha’i students from post high-school education unless they recant their religion, deprives them of engaging in numerous forms of occupations and trades, denies them from holding worship gatherings, razes their holy places and much more. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not satisfied with its cruel treatment of the living Baha’is and has launched a war on their dead by bulldozing Baha’i cemeteries in several cities. Thus is the rule of fundamental Islamism that is awaiting the complacent and snoozing world.

* Oppression of women in general is tragic indeed. Men are allowed to have as many as four wives simultaneously and as many concubines as they wish or can afford. Men can easily divorce their wives and automatically have the custody of the children, if they so decide. Women have subservient status to men in all areas of the law. Equality under the law has no meaning in Islam. Just one example of the dreadful way of treating women in Islam is a case of a Saudi woman who was gang-raped. The Islamic court convicted the woman to prison term and lashes for having committed the “sin” of riding in a car with a male who was not her relative. This is a standard form of Islamic Shariah justice—a savage heritage of barbarism that ruled the Arabian Peninsula some centuries ago.

* Islam has a solution for every “problem.” It deals with homosexuals, for instance, by hanging them en mass and gloating about it, even though homosexuality is just as prevalent in Islamic lands as anywhere else. Recently an Ayatollah made a ruling on homosexuals. He said that they should be tortured before they are hanged. In Islam the rulings of high-ranking clergy constitute the law and are binding.

* Not only Islam does not allow freedom of assembly and the press, it is intrusively restrictive in every aspects of a person’s life. The way women should dress, the haircut of men, the music people are allowed, movies to watch, television programs to view, and even parties in the privacy of their home are subject to the ridiculous monitoring of moral police. Islam is hell-bent on outward morality and puritanical conduct while it is rotten to the core just below the pretentious surface.

* Islam segregates by gender many public places and events such as beaches, sporting venues, public transportations, and even building elevators. Families are often prevented from attending a sporting event together or swimming together at a beach.

* Egypt, the crown of the Arab-Islam world, demands that citizens declare Islam or only one of the two other religions, Jewish and Christianity, as their religion in order to receive the government-issued identity cards. ID cards are required for jobs, healthcare, education, a marriage license and a host of other things. If you are an agnostic, an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Baha’i, you are forced to perjure yourself to receive the indispensable ID card. In a real sense, Islam the pretender of high moral ground compels people to lie in order to receive what is their birthright as citizens.

I have been sounding the alarm about Islam’s imminent deadly threat for a number of years. The Islamic treasury flush with oil extortion money together with the help of useful idiots is having the upper hand in this battle of survival for freedom. The slaveholder Islam has been transformed into a more virulent form of Islamofascism; it is an inveterate unrelenting enemy of freedom. We need to act now and stem the tide of this deadly threat. Tomorrow may be too late. Freedom is too precious to abandon through complacency, acts of political correctness, or outright cowardice.

New York (CNN) — Plans to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero have set off an emotional debate among area residents and relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Cordoba House project calls for a 15-story community center including a mosque, performance art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.

The project is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, both of which work to improve relations with followers of the religion.

The two groups presented their vision to part of the Community Board of lower Manhattan on Wednesday night.

Ro Sheffe, a board member who attended the meeting, said the project did not need to get the board’s approval.

“They own the land, and their plans don’t have any zoning changes,” Sheffe said. “They came to us for our opinions and to let us know their plans. It was purely voluntary on their part.”

The 12 members who were at the meeting voted unanimously to support the project. Community board members are appointed by the borough president and serve as advisers to the borough president and the mayor’s office.

Daisy Khan, executive director of the Muslim society, described her vision of a center led by Muslims, but serving the community as a whole.

“It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion,” Khan said. “It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum.” [NOTE: This is pure eyewash. All religious Moslems have very much to do with “extremist ideologies” because the supremacist, hateful, violent ideology of Islam is part and parcel of the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad. No religious Moslems will dare to critize those passages which justify Islamic terrorism.]

The need for the center is twofold, Khan said, because it will support the needs of the growing Muslim community.

“The time for a center like this has come because Islam is an American religion,” Khan said. [NOTE: Islam is an American religion only in the sense that Moslems live in America. In terms of values and teachings, Islam is NOT an American religion. Not even close.] “We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive.”

Sheffe said a community center for lower Manhattan residents is “desperately needed.” The area was mostly commercial, Sheffe said, but as more people move downtown, the lack of residential amenities is a problem.

The project got mixed reviews from families and friends of September 11 victims.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero. “I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we’re not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists. As a black man, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against when you haven’t done anything.” [NOTE: Typical bait and switch. At first we are talking about Islam, the religious belief system. Then they switch to talk about Muslims. Some Moslems take the doctrines of Islam seriously; some don’t. We are legitimately concerned about those Moslems who do take the Islamic doctrines seriously,]

Herbert Ouida, whose son was killed in the attacks, supports the project as a way to bridge cultural divide.

“I understand the anger, the bitterness and hatred, but it only generates more hatred,” Ouida said. “Such a large part of the world has this faith, and to say anyone who has this faith is a terrorist, it’s terrible.” [NOTE: Again, the bait and switch. Nobody says that all Moslems are terrorists. The correct argument is that the doctrines of Islam motivate many Moslem to become terrorists — and also non-terrorist supremacists and silent jihadists.]

Others decried the idea of building a mosque so close to where their relatives died.

“Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there,” said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. “It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they’re [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn’t be down there.”

Others such as Barry Zelman said the site’s location will be a painful reminder.

“[The 9/11 terrorists] did this in the name of Islam,” Zelman said. “It’s a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it’s just hypocritical and sacrilegious. ”

However, Khan emphasized that the attacks killed Muslims, too. [NOTE: This is irrelevant. The memorial to the victims includes the Moslem victims. The fact that there were Moslem victims says nothing about the violent, jihadist doctrines of Islam which caused the 9/11 Moslem terrorists to do what they did.]

“Three hundred of the victims were Muslim, that’s 10 percent of the victims,” she said. “We are Americans too. The 9/11 tragedy hurt everybody including the Muslim community. We are all in this together and together we have to fight against extremism and terrorism.” [NOTE: Such fakery! If they want to fight against “extremism”, then let them teach their children that the violent, intolerant, hateful, warlike passages in the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad are no longer valid. That is the only way they can fight against Islamic “extremism” and terrorism.

Cordoba House is still in its early stages of development. The American Society for Muslim Advancement is hoping to raise funds for the center to be completed in three to five years. [NOTE: Let’s watch where these funds come from. Saudi Arabia? Dubai?]

The number of mosques and mosque attendants are witnessing a tremendous increase in recent years in America. About two million Muslims are associated with the mosques as the number of attendants increases to more than 75% during the last five years. There were only 500,000 Muslims going to a mosque in 1994. This was revealed by a comprehensive study of the mosques throughout the country. The study points out that estimates of a total Muslim population of 6-7 million in America seems reasonable in view of the figure of two million Muslims associated with the mosques. An average of 1,629 Muslims associate in some way with the religious life of each mosque, such as attending mosque for Friday and Eid prayers.

They’re here folks. Lots of them and they are waiting for the call from there Imam to start the bombing here….again!

NOTE: As is typical, CNN, like other media, do not even attempt to enlighten their readers as to why this happened. Here is what you need to know in order to understand this article:

The constitution of Saudi Arabia is the Koran.

The laws of Saudi Arabia come from the Koran, the sayings of Muhammad and Sharia law.

Under sharia law, “sorcery” and any other form of “predicting the future” is forbidden because only Allah determines the future. Therefore, sorcery is considered a form of blasphemy and unbelief, which is punishable by death.

Sharia law specifically forbids sorcery: “Sorcery is an enormity because the sorcerer must necessarily disbelieve, and the accursed Devil has no other motive for teaching a person witchcraft than that he might thereby ascribe associates to Allah. [note: this is the Islamic crime of “shirk”, the greatest possible sin in Islam]. The manual of sharia law, Umdat al-Salik, cites two verses from the Koran: 1) “A sorcerer will never prosper wherever he goes” (20:69); and 2) “… But the devils disbelieved, teaching people sorcery” (2:102).

The manual of sharia law lists six categories of “unlawful knowledge”, among which are “sorcery, philosophy, magic, astrology, materialist science, and anything that is a means to create doubts (in the eternal truths).

In Islam, “sorcery” constitutes “disbelief in destiny” and destiny is the province of Allah alone.

Saudi Arabia is, supposedly, our friend and ally.

Our president bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, like all Moslem countries, rejects our Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When will Amnesty International and other human rights organizations take a stand on this? When will America bring this up at the United Nations?

TV presenter gets death sentence for ‘sorcery’

Ali Hussain Sibat faces death sentence for predicting future on TV show

Sibat arrested, tried and sentenced during pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia

Reports say case is due to return to appeals court

(CNN) — Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for “sorcery.”

In a statement released Thursday, the international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Sheherazade, a Beirut based satellite TV channel.

According to his lawyer, Sibat, who is 48 and has five children, would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience.

The attorney, May El Khansa, who is in Lebanon, tells CNN her client was arrested by Saudi Arabia’s religious police (known as the Mutawa’een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008. Sibat was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Islamic religious pilgrimage known as Umra.

Sibat was then put on trial. In November 2009, a court in the Saudi city of Medina found Sibat guilty and sentenced him to death.

According to El Khansa, Sibat appealed the verdict. The case was taken up by the Court of Appeal in the Saudi city of Mecca on the grounds that the initial verdict was “premature.”

El Khansa tells CNN that the Mecca appeals court then sent the case back to the original court for reconsideration, stipulating that all charges made against Sibat needed to be verified and that he should begiven a chance to repent.

On March 10, judges in Medina upheld their initial verdict, meaning Sibat is once again sentenced to be executed.

“The Medina court refused the sentence of the appeals court,” said El Khansa, adding her client will appeal the verdict once more.

The case has been covered extensively by local media. According to Arab News, an English language Saudi daily newspaper, after the most recent verdict was issued, the judges in Medina issued a statement expressing that Sibat deserved to be executed for having continually practiced black magic on his show, adding that this sentence would deter others from practicing sorcery. Arab News reports that the case will now return to the appeals court in Mecca.

CNN has not been able to reach Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Justice for comment.